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About Me

I am a Ph.D. student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. I study the History of Biblical Interpretation, which includes Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. My interests are religion, politics, TV, movies, and reading.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Heaven and Faith

At church this morning, there were two things that stood out to me.

1. The pastor was preaching about heaven. He was saying that there
will be no physical pain there, and that resonated with a number of
people, who had to deal with aches, pains, and illness. The pastor also
said that rejection and jealousy will be long forgotten. That
resonated with me.

There was a season of my life in which I really longed for heaven. I
felt lonely. Jonathan Edwards’ sermon on heaven really ministered to
me at that time: Edwards said that, if you find that you have no
companions, don’t hate those who reject you, but look forward to heaven,
which will be a world of love. That kind of hope got me through bad
days. At the church that I attended at that time, a lady liked to sing,
“I want to go to heaven and rest, I’m tired of living down here, I’m
tired of toils and troubles, I want to go to heaven and rest.”

There is a skeptical part of me: How do I even know that there is a
blessed afterlife? Maybe that’s all wishful thinking. I find that,
nowadays, I do not think about heaven all that much. But the pastor’s
sermon this morning reminded me of a time when I did. And it reminded
me of why so many other people long for it.

2. Someone from the congregation gave a testimony. He was saying
that he was on Facebook, and there was a lot of nastiness. He was not
too specific about what that nastiness was, but my hunch is that he may
have interacted with some atheist trolls. He said that he came to the
church and prayed. He concluded that faith is something that is within,
and he talked about the clarity and the comfort that his faith has
given him.

I would probably agree with some of those atheist trolls on certain
issues. Still, in terms of my faith, I have faith on account of the
same reasons that the young man gave this morning: it gives me clarity
and comfort.